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Cynicism Quotes

Browse 738 quotes about Cynicism.

Cynicism Quotes

“You're constantly, in human culture, trying to balance between uplifting, heartfelt, sincere, earnestness that empowers and enlightens people, and the sarcastic cynicism that comes from just people's acquired bitterness over experiences.”

People Trying Humans Culture Balance Uplifting Empowering Sarcastic Sincere Bitterness Cynicism Enlightening Heartfelt Earnestness

Author:Seth Green

“I'm a silly guy, I love wit and cynicism and sarcasm.”

Guy Wit Silly Sarcasm Cynicism

Author:Columbus Short

“The low-hanging fruit is cynicism and pessimism, and it's there if you want it. You can reach out and you can grab it, you don't even have to make any effort.”

Ifs Want Effort Lows Fruit Pessimism Reach Out Cynicism

Author:Emilio Estevez

“We can destroy ourselves by cynicism and disillusion, just as effectively as by bombs.”

Inspiration Motivational Attitude Positive Attitude Bombs Cynicism Black History Disillusionment Positive Thinking Attitude Disillusion Short Positive Attitude Dropping Bombs

Book:Civilisation

Source: Civilisation

“Cynicism is cheap - you can buy it at any Monoprix store - it's built into all poor-quality goods.”

Poor Quality Built Stores Goods Cynicism Cynic Poor Quality Quality Goods

Book:The Comedians

Source: The Comedians

“There's a fine line between participation and mockery.”

Lines Fine Criticism Critics Cynicism Altruism Participation Mockery Fine Lines

Book:Stick to Drawing Comics, Monkey Brain!: Cartoonist Explains Cloning, Blouse Monsters, Voting Machines, Romance, Monkey G ods, How to Avoid Being Mistaken for a Rodent, and More

Source: Stick to Drawing Comics, Monkey Brain!: Cartoonist Explains Cloning, Blouse Monsters, Voting Machines, Romance, Monkey G ods, How to Avoid Being Mistaken for a Rodent, and More

“Energy always flows either toward hope, community, love, generosity, mutual recognition, and spiritual aliveness or it flows toward despair, cynicism, fear that there is not enough, paranoia about the intentions of others, and a desire to control.”

Enough Spiritual Desire Choices Energy Fear Community Despair Flow Intention Recognition Generosity Mutual Cynicism Fairness Paranoia

Author:Michael Lerner

“Avoid head trash. Don't be a garbage can for anything that does not feed your intellect, stimulate your imagination, or make you a more compassionate peaceful person. Refuse to open your mind to other people's trash. Tune out anything that promotes conflict or controversy. This can infect you with a mind virus of cynicism or defeat, and you won't even know it!”

People Knows Mind Persons Doe Imagination Conflict Defeat Refuse Intellect Peaceful Tunes Peace Of Mind Compassionate Cynicism Controversy Trash Garbage Viruses Stimulation Garbage Cans

Author:Les Brown

“I think I hate cynicism more than anything else. It's the curse of our age, and I want to avoid it at all costs.”

Thinking Want Age Hate Cost I Hate Curse Cynicism

Author:Paul Auster

“I get the cynicism thing all the time, although I don't really know where that comes from, because I think I'm actually the opposite of a cynic.”

Thinking Knows Opposites Cynicism Cynic

Author:Matt Taibbi

“For all the cynicism that the world contains, people are a little more open to those things that maybe are to do with returning you to some kind of simpler, happier state.”

People World Kind Littles States Cynicism

Author:Kenneth Branagh

“The press is still investing itself, it seems to me, in a sort of cynicism. It comes out better for them if they can predict hard times, bogging down, sniping, attrition.”

Ifs Stills Hard Seems Presses Investing Hard Times Cynicism Attrition Sniping

Author:Christopher Hitchens

“I use emotion for the many and reserve reason for the few.”

Reason Use Emotion Propaganda Cynicism Favourite Reserves Altruism Mein Kampf

Author:Adolf Hitler

“So don't get cynical. Cynicism didn't put a man on the moon. Cynicism has never won a war, or cured a disease, or built a business, or fed a young mind. Cynicism is a choice. And hope will always be a better choice.”

Men Mind War Young Choices Moon Disease Built Feds Cynical Cynicism Young Minds

Author:Barack Obama

“We must renew democracy itself. We have to fight cynicism and inertia and restore faith in the advancement of our country.”

Country Fighting Democracy Our Country Cynicism Advancement Inertia

Author:Paul Wellstone

“Never surrender to cynicism, even if you suspect it would get the critics on your side.Never surrender to cynicism, even if you suspect it would get the critics on your side.”

Ifs Sides Critics Surrender Suspects Cynicism Your Side Never Surrender

Author:Roselyne Bosch

“The larger an English industry was, the more likely it was to go bankrupt, because the English were not naturally corporate people; they disliked working for others and they seemed to resent taking orders. On the whole, directors were treated absurdly well, and workers badly, and most industries were weakened by class suspicion and false economies and cynicism. But the same qualities that made English people seem stubborn and secretive made them, face to face, reliable and true to their word. I thought: The English do small things well and big things badly.”

Source: The Kingdom by the Sea: A Journey Around the Coast of Great Britain

“I think if you see that no one is going to laugh at you for it, I think the concept of living nicely will be infectious. I believe there is room for the absence of cynicism.”

Ifs Thinking Believe I Believe Rooms Laughing Concepts Absence Cynicism

Author:Mitch Leigh

“I don't think of myself as particularly earnest. I have long bouts of cynicism and skepticism. So much of my early life was full of uncertainties. It still is. My "Buddha book" expresses that. Perhaps that's what created this impression of earnestness.”

Thinking Long Stills Book Impression Uncertainty Cynicism Skepticism Earnest Earnestness Early Life

Author:Pankaj Mishra

“Cynicism makes you feel smart, I know it, even when you aren't smart.”

Knows Feels Smart Cynicism

Book:The Bascombe Novels: The Sportswriter, Independence Day, The Lay of the Land

Source: The Bascombe Novels: The Sportswriter, Independence Day, The Lay of the Land

“Smile, it's free therapy.”

Happiness Joy Laughter Smile Therapy Cynicism Altruism

Author:Douglas Horton

“That so much of our experience, or the stereotype which passes for it should be dealt with by means of the short story is perhaps a symptom not unnoticeable elsewhere in the public domain of an unlovely cynicism about human character.”

Should Humans Mean Character Stories Short Story Elsewhere Cynicism Stereotype Symptoms Domain Public Domain

Book:A Howard Nemerov Reader

Source: A Howard Nemerov Reader

“Be your own hero, it's cheaper than a movie ticket.”

Actors Hero Movie Cynicism Heroism Tickets Altruism Cheaper Being A Hero

Author:Douglas Horton

“If the destination is heaven, why do we scramble to be first in line for hell?”

Ifs Firsts Heaven Lines Hell Destination Cynicism Altruism

Author:Douglas Horton

“The key to heaven's gate cannot be duplicated.”

Heaven Keys Gates Cynicism Altruism

Author:Douglas Horton

“Skepticism turns to cynicism, which leads to apathy and despair, which can cause sleeplessness, dry-mouth, and loss of sex drive?”

Turns Sex Causes Loss Despair Mouths Dry Apathy Cynicism Skepticism Sleeplessness Sex Drive

Author:Al Franken

“Realism has always been called cynicism.”

Cynicism Realism

Author:Gore Vidal

“We hardly need to be reminded that we are living in an age of confusion - a lot of us have traded in our beliefs for bitterness and cynicism or for a heavy package of despair, or even a quivering portion of hysteria. Opinions can be picked up cheap in the market place while such commodities as courage and fortitude and faith are in alarmingly short supply.”

Needs Age Belief Opinion Despair Heavy Confusion Bitterness Portions Cynicism Commodity Fortitude Packages Hysteria

Author:Edward R. Murrow

“Never insult an alligator until after you have crossed the river.”

Funny Rivers Insult Cynicism Epic Altruism Comeback Alligators

Author:Cordell Hull

“There are many different kinds of doubt. When we doubt the future, we call it worry. When doubt other people we call is suspicion. When we doubt ourselves we call it inferiority. When we doubt God we call it unbelief. When we doubt what we hear on television we call it intelligence! When we doubt everything we call it cynicism or skepticism.”

People Kind Different Worry Doubt Television Different Kinds Cynicism Suspicion Skepticism Inferiority Unbelief

Author:Rick Warren

“I have a healthy cynicism, but not anger.”

Healthy Cynicism

Author:Sheryl Crow

“Are there people to aspire to? Can people be strong enough to withstand all of this disillusionment? Maybe the time is right for people to emerge from the easy cynicism and try to get back to a place where we can actually believe in people and trust people to have proper motivations.”

People Trying Believe Enough Motivation Strong Easy Get Back Cynicism Aspire Strong Enough Disillusionment

Author:Brendan Gleeson

“When I was a young reporter, the great vice among journalists was whiskey. Today, it's cynicism.”

Today Young Vices Journalist Cynicism Reporters Whiskey

Author:Paul Simon

“If democracy is ever to be threatened, it will not be by revolutionary groups burning government offices and occupying the broadcasting and newspaper offices of the world. It will come from disenchantment, cynicism and despair caused by the realisation that the New World Order means we are all to be managed and not represented.”

“As the nation at last confronts global warming, it is no time for denial, greed, cynicism or pessimism.”

Lasts Nations Greed Denial Global Warming Pessimism Cynicism

Author:Bernie Sanders

“Without the truth of the people, politics degenerates into mere spectacle and democracy declines, leaving demagoguery and cynicism to fill the void.”

People Democracy Mere Leaving Void Cynicism Decline Degenerates Demagoguery Fill The Void

Author:Jerry Brown

“What seems conceit, bad manners or cynicism is always a sign of things no ear have heard, no eyes have seen. You do not know what wars are going on down there where the spirit meets the bone.”

Knows War Seems Eye Spirit Heard Ears Bones Manners Cynicism Conceit Bad Manners

Author:Lucinda Williams

“Each of us must work to become a hardheaded realist, or else we risk wasting our time and energy on pursuing impossible dreams. Yet constant naysayers pursue no less impossible dreams. Their fear and cynicism move nothing forward. They kill progress. How many cynics built empires, great cities, or powerful corporations?”

Source: It Worked for Me (Enhanced Edition): In Life and Leadership

“A person is as young as their dreams and as old as their cynicism.”

Persons Dream Young Cynicism

Book:Let Me Tell You a Story: Life Lessons from Unexpected Places and Unlikely People

Source: Let Me Tell You a Story: Life Lessons from Unexpected Places and Unlikely People

“One person's magical thinking is another person's cynicism.”

Thinking Persons Cynicism Magical Thinking

Author:Damon Lindelof

“If you keep on excusing, you eventually give your blessing to the slave camp, to cowardly force, to organized executioners, to the cynicism of great political monsters; you finally hand over your brothers.”

Ifs Giving Hands Political Force Brother Blessing Slave Monsters Organized Over You Camps Cynicism Cowardly Your Brother Executioners Great Political

Book:Resistance, Rebellion, and Death: Essays

Source: Resistance, Rebellion, and Death: Essays

“The commonwealth of Athens is become a forest of beasts.”

Politics Forests Beast Cynicism Commonwealth Athens

Book:Titus Andronicus. Romeo and Juliet. Timon of Athens. Julius Caesar

Source: Titus Andronicus. Romeo and Juliet. Timon of Athens. Julius Caesar

“But we have reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal stings, our unbitted lusts; whereof I take this that you call love to bea sect or scion.... It is merely a lust of the blood and a permission of the will.”

Reason Humanity Blood Rage Lust Cynicism Permission Sects Scions

Book:The plays and poems of William Shakspeare

Source: The plays and poems of William Shakspeare

“Don't confuse my point of view with cynicism. The real cynics are the ones who tell you that everything's gonna be all right.”

Real Views Point Of View Cynicism

Book:Brain Droppings

Source: Brain Droppings

“There's a lot of cynicism. Let's really enjoy Christmas, with all that's going on in the world.”

World Enjoy Cynicism

Author:Bob Newhart

“There is no power in cynicism. There is no forward thrust in cynicism.”

Cynicism Thrust

Author:Jesse Jackson

“I believe I'm growing skeptical of cynicism.”

Believe I Believe Growing Cynicism Skeptical

Author:Chuck Lorre

“Well, the good news is that there's quite a lot of cynicism about major labels within radio and the press. I think they have been largely disillusioned by the manner in which the record companies have developed music.”

Thinking Wells Has Beens Company Records Majors News Presses Radio Labels Cynicism Good News Record Companies Disillusioned

Author:Mick Hucknall

“Be polite to all, but intimate with few.”

Intimate Cynicism Altruism Polite Presidency

Author:Thomas Jefferson

“Cynicism is fear posing as confidence; joy is hope let off the leash.”

Joy Cynicism Posing Leashes

Author:Bob Goff